- Because….he’s
freaking Sir Paul McCartney, that’s why. What the hell were the producers of
the British version of the reality karaoke show “The Voice” thinking when they
asked one of the greatest songwriters ever to become a coach on their pathetic
excuse for a singing competition? Sure, actually having an icon like Sir Paul
on the air would be great, but there’s a 0 percent chance he’s saying yes and
that number is probably too generous. McCartney has a million better things to
do and even if he didn’t, he should never lower himself to this level.
According to multiple sources, the show - which is moving to ITV from BBC1 for
its next season - was desperate to sign McCartney to be one of its four
coaches, but he turned them down outright. Not that McCartney needed any
additional reasons beyond, “I’m Paul McCartney, dammit!”, but when Kaiser
Chiefs singer Ricky Wilson and Paloma Faith have already said they won’t return
as coaches, it’s safe to say that a member of the Beatles won't be taking part.
Others who may make the transition are pop music hacks Boy George and
will.i.am. and hosts Emma Willis and Marvin Humes, while Robbie Williams and
Jennifer Hudson have also been linked with coaching roles on the show. There’s
also the not unusual - pun intended possibility that Tom Jones will return to
the panel despite being axed by BBC1 following the 2015 edition of the show.
But in the end, all that matters is finding a worthy karaoke successor to
someone named Kevin Simm, who won the most recent season of the show and has
set the music world afire with, umm, never mind……….
- Ah,
the illegal timber black market of Senegal…at it again. It’s clear that this
problem isn't going away, at least according to a former Senegalese environment minister. Now an ecologist, Haidar El Ali
said illegal timber sales from Senegal to Gambia could see the Casamance forest
depleted significantly in the next two years. Deforestation in the southern
Casamance region has picked up speed in the past six years due to illegal sales
and aerial footage taken during a research trip shows thousands of rosewood
logs being collected in Senegal and deposited in neighboring Gambia, where
depots operate about half a mile from the border. According to El Ali, much of
that wood is then sold to China. That’s a problem because timber exports from
Senegal are illegal and to fight deforestation those illegally chopping trees
in Senegal, environmental advocates believe punishments must be enforced and
more severe, exportation licenses need to be checked and international
sanctions on the export of wood from Gambia need to be considered. Senegal
mostly surrounds Gambia and has a larger portion of forest , especially in the
Casamance region, which has 74,000 acres of forest remaining, while Gambia has
just 9,800 acres left, according to watchdog group Global Forest Watch. In
spite of those numbers, Chinese rosewood import volumes from Gambia were second
only to Nigeria in all of West Africa, according to Chinese customs data
gathered by El Ali. More than half of China's imports of such wood came from
Africa, so fighting the battle in Africa is hitting the situation at its root. Then
again, given the level of corruption and overall ineptitude among governments
in such underdeveloped nations, identifying the problem and fixing it are
drastically different endeavors……….
- In
their big rivalry game with Ohio State the past few seasons, the Michigan
Wolvers have ended the game feeling like they just got run over by a
scarlet-and-gray 18-wheeler. Now, one member of the team knows the literally
feeling of getting trucked by a piece of heavy equipment - and he survived to
tell the tale with just a little bit of discomfort. Michigan running back Drake
Johnson was run over by a forklift in a freak accident at the Wolverines'
indoor track building, making the fatal mistake of being on the ground
stretching in a place where stretching and fitness are the norm. The forklift
driver felt a bump and thought he'd run over some kind of track equipment, but
turned around and realized he'd run over Johnson. Head coach Jim Harbaugh said
during a teleconference that Johnson was "doing well" and shouldn’t
miss much time and it appears the coach was correct, as Johnson, an Ann Arbor
native, is on the road to recovery and competed s in hurdle events for Michigan
in the spring. The sad part is that Johnson has rushed for just 641 yards in
the first three seasons of an injury-plagued career and has twice torn his
anterior cruciate ligament, so he really doesn’t need any assistance when it
comes to getting injured. The mere fact that he survived his close encounter
with a Caterpillar and didn’t sustain a life-threatening injury caused Harbaugh
to describe the situation as “a miracle right up there with Easter,” which at
this point would also be a good description for the Wolverines staying within
four touchdowns of Ohio State on the final Saturday of November one of these
seasons………
- I
fought the law and the law got pissy and started tossing around angry words. That
fight is real and it is snarky in South Carolina, where the state legislature
is working on a bill to ban police departments from having ticket quotas. The
idea of ticket quotas is one of those unspoken, dirty little secret/unwritten
rules for the law because we all know it exists, yet no one is going to put it
down on paper. What the legislature does want to put on paper, led by Rep. Justin
Bamberg, is a ban on quotas in light of the fatal shooting of Walter Scott by
North Charleston police officer Michael Slager. Bamberg said the reason Scott
was stopped was because of pressure put on Slager and other officers to write
tickets and hey, if an officer uses excessive force or a person overreacts to
being stopped by an officer, the natural answer is to find ways to reduce the
number of officer-public interactions rather than expect either side to act
rationally or responsibly in the event such an encounter occurs. The bill has
already passed the House and this week, it moved out of the Senate Judiciary
Committee headed by Pickens Senator Larry Martin. "I fully expect the
Senate will take it up tomorrow and I hope we can get it passed," Martin
said. That doesn’t sit well with Union County Sheriff David Taylor, who remains
in denial that ticket quotas exist at all. "It's the most ridiculous
legislation that has ever been introduced that I can remember," Taylor
said. "I don't know of anyone that runs quotas." In that case, what’s
the problem, sheriff? If you’re right, then this bill shouldn’t faze you at
all. So you keep on pretending that quotas don’t exist and the rest of the
world will keep on reacting to the fact that they do…….
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